Pāda b is repeated below as v. 4. 2 b. The first half-verse is, without variant, TA. vi. 10. 2, vs. 9 a, b; and it occurs also in HGS. (i. 11. 5), which reads upari at the end for pari ⌊and so at MP. ii. 8. 11 a, b⌋. The second half is VS. xvi. 5 c, d, and also found in TS. iv. 5. 12 and MS. ii. 9. 2; all these have áhīn instead of yātū́n, and read jambháyan (pres. pple.); and our jambháyat may, of course, be pres. pple. neut.; some of the mss. (including our Bp.M.I.) indeed read -yan here, though no masc. subject is implied; the comm. paraphrases with nāçayad vartate. SPP., with his customary defiance of grammar upon this point, reads sárvān instead of -āṅ or -ān̄ ⌊cf. i. 1 9. 4, note⌋.
10. If thou art of the three-peaked [mountain], or if thou art called of the Yamunā—both thy names are excellent; by them protect us, O ointment.
Te in c might perhaps be emended with advantage to té. The Yamunā is not elsewhere mentioned in AV. Nā́mnī is to be read, of course, as of three syllables, and there is no reason why the text should not give us nā́manī.
10. Against evils: with a pearl-shell amulet.
[Atharvan.—çan̄khamaṇisūktam. taddāivatam. ānuṣṭubham: 6. pathyāpan̄kti; 7. 5-p. parānuṣṭup çakvarī.]
Found (except vs. 5) in Pāipp. iv. Used by Kāuç. (58. 9) in the same ceremony with the preceding hymn, but with an amulet of mother-of-pearl; the schol. (not the comm.) also add it in an earlier part of the ceremony (56. 17). The comm. quotes it further from Nakṣ. K. (19), as employed in a mahāçānti named vāruṇī.
Translated: Ludwig, p. 462; Grill, 36, 124; Griffith, 1. 142; Bloomfield, 62, 383; Weber, xviii. 36.—Bloomfield cites an article in ZDMG. (xxxvi. 135) by Pischel, who, in turn, cites a lot of interesting literature about pearl.
⌊Although rain-drops are not expressly mentioned in this hymn nor in xix. 30. 5 (which see), I think it safe to say that the bit of Hindu folk-lore about the origin of pearls by transformation of rain-drops falling into the sea (Indische Sprüche, 344) is as old as this Vedic text and the one in xix. The references here to sky and sea and lightning, and in xix. to Parjanya and thunder and sea, all harmonize perfectly with that belief, which is at least ten centuries old (it occurs in Rājaçekhara, 900 A.D.) and has lasted till today (Manwaring's Marāṭhī Proverbs, no. 1291). See my translation of Karpūra-mañjarī, p. 264 f., and note 5. Pischel, l.c., reports as follows: "According to Aelian (περὶ ζῴων, x. 13), a pearl forms when the lightning flashes into an open seashell; according to an Arabic writer, when rain-drops fall into it, or, according to Pliny (ix. 107), dew."—The persistency of popular beliefs in India is well illustrated by the curious one concerning female snakes: see my note to Karpūra-mañjarī, p. 231.⌋
1. Born from the wind out of the atmosphere, out from the light of lightning, let this gold-born shell, of pearl, protect us from distress.
Of course, all the four nouns in the first half-verse may be coördinate ablatives. The beauty and sheen of the material connect it traceably with gold and lightning, but how even a Hindu ṛṣi can bring it into relation with wind from (or and) the atmosphere is not easy to see. Kṛ́çana ought to mean the pearl itself, and is perhaps used in the hymn appositively = "which is itself virtually pearl"; the comm. explains it in this verse as karçayitā çatrūṇāṁ tanūkartā. Ppp. has in c hiraṇyadās.
2. Thou that wast born from the top of the shining spaces (rocaná),
